Govt Plans ‘Good Samaritan’ Guidelines

Some Basic Info

•  Every year more than 1, 35000 people die in road accidents in india.
• The country has overtaken China and now has the worst road traffic accident rate worldwide.
• Speeding, drunk driving and low use of helmets, seat belts and child restraints in vehicles as the main contributing factors.

Now, The News

• The central government has issued a set of enforceable instructions to protect citizens who help road accident victims.
• These guidelines will protect such “good Samaritans” from procedural and legal harassment if they help such victims, with suitable compensation provisions for the help rendered.
• These steps follow a Supreme Court (SC) directive.
• These new guidelines make the disclosure of any personal information voluntary and optional in hospitals on the filling of medico-legal forms.
• Guidelines forbidding all registered public and private hospitals from demanding payment for registration and admission costs of a road collision or accident victim from such samaritans will also be issued soon.

Know More:

• There is at present no law or guideline that seeks to protect such a rescuer. A few governments in the country, however, have issued directions in this regard, forbidding the harassment of a person who brings a road victim to hospital. Such an advisory, for instance, was issued by the Delhi Police after the notorious December 16, 2012, gangrape.
• Apart from the human dimension of the tragedy, avoidable death and disability seriously affect economic progress — by some estimates, 3 per cent of GDP is lost in a year due to the carnage
• The Supreme Court had ordered to appoint a three-member committee to suggest ways to prevent road accidents and ensure accountability in 2014.